Thursday 13 June 2019

I’m still struggling to get a decent version of the Christmas song down…

MARGARET’s off to the optician first thing…I hit the studio to try and record the first of the Christmas tracks for my publisher.

Playing the guitar part in itself is fairly simple, but ensuring all he notes are clean and have a consistent dynamic is hard. Throw in clunks and other sonic ‘artefacts’ and the thing becomes a bit of a mess. Sounds fine ‘live’ but you cannot really get away with anything on a recording.

I’ll try again later – meantime, the grass is needing cut and I need to touch base with a few of the local folks participating in the local 4G internet trial.

Margaret comes back from the optician and has brought some shopping…including some goodies for lunch.

Once we’ve eaten its time to make the Andouille sausage with the mix I prepared yesterday and the hogskin casing that’s been soaking overnight.

Like yesterday, the electric mincer is employed and we have a couple of false starts as its not clear form the manual how to set up. with the sausage attachment. We get there, tho’ – and it’ll be easier next time!

Once made, the sausages are hung in front of a fan for an hour while I get the smoker prepped. When the time is right the sausage is put on the smoker – 140 degrees fahrenheit rising to 160 degrees over the three or four hour smoke. Keeping the smoker going at such. low temperature is a bit of a challenge, as is maintaining the temperature, and creeping it up, over time.

In between times I work on artwork ideas for promo postcards and social media graphics for the USA tour, finalise and order embroidered patches and do a couple of Facebook livestreams.

Back in the studio I spend a good hour or two trying to get a decent ‘take’ of the guitar part I’m working on but I’m still not 100% happy. If push comes to shove I can probably edit together different parts and assemble a final version, but that’s really a last resort and a lot of work.

I’m preparing the green curry when the remote temperature monitor from he smoker tells me the Andouille sausage has reached 165 degrees fahrenheit eternal. Time to take it off, hang it up, spray it with cold water and leave it in front of the fan for another hour…